LOWELL, Mass. — You can count Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg as a proponent of the Carolina Hurricanes reunion the team projects to have on its back end entering the 2011-12 season.

Seidenberg, on hand to play in Milan Lucic’s softball charity game last night, believes that his former ‘Canes teammate Joe Corvo will boost Boston’s fortunes during the defense of the Stanley Cup title.

“He’s an offensive guy and I’m sure he likes to shoot the puck and that’s what we need – guys getting the puck to the net and creating rebounds,” said Seidenberg about Corvo, who was acquired in a trade to replace Tomas Kaberle. “And I think he’s been doing that in the past and I’m sure he’s going to do it again.”

Seidenberg played on a pair with Corvo sporadically, as Corvo mostly played with Tim Gleason and Seidenberg skated with Joni Pitkanen when that quartet was together in Carolina. He could wind up next to Corvo this season depending on what alignment head coach Claude Julien and his staff opt for.

Seidenberg offered this scouting report on his former teammate:

“A very, very good skater. Good hands, good passer,. Very fast. I like playing with him like I did in Carolina. I’m looking forward to it and I think he’ll fit in really well.”

Bruins16,
Fair points all, and I really think this is his make or break year in Boston. He regressed offensively last season and wasn’t all that impressive defensively, although he maintained his physical game quite well, which saw him stay in favor. I think the Bruins will really look for him to develop his offense or his defense further to justify resigning him, or may hold onto him anyway if some of the kids don’t quite look ready for next season. Either way, I think he’s gotta prove his value this year. I do think you’re right in that few teams could match him at #4 Washington is the only team that comes to mind. So I think the summary is we have a really good situation with him because we can get good value out of him no matter what.

David
Boychuk probably has this year to cut down on the number of times he’s on the ice, when a goal is scored. I have to believe that B’s coaching staff must have felt that some of the times he was not the reason for the defensive breakdown. As well, they must believe there is more to come regarding his play. Julien has shown that defense is a priority. Sometimes it takes D-men a couple years to really blossom. I agree he is the number 4 d-man, for the Bruins. If you look around, however, there aren’t too many other number 4 d-men you would trade him for.

Bruins 16,
I think the team’s high point was against philly, I mean that we didn’t lose a game, so the other series may be better indicators of player’s performance. That said, Boychuck was on ice for most of the B’s goals against, even though there was only 8 goals against us the entire series. I don’t recall the exact number anymore, but he was on ice for 6 or 7 of those goals against. Furthermore, he didn’t have any stupid giveaways, so it would be more poor positioning, which is something you don’t really want in a top 4 defenseman. He definitely brings the body and a great shot as you suggest, which I do think is why he was put in the top 4, but given Boston’s style of play, we want more defense from our top 4, which puts Boychuck as trade bait for next season more likely than unless he can smooth that over a little. McQuaid is in no way his replacement though. You’re pretty much dead on about McQuaid. I think Chia really likes what he brings in physical play for the 3rd pair with the possibility of more upside as he grows. I don’t want to see McQuaid higher than the 3rd pairing, because he’s kind of like Gill that way: in his role there’s going to be few better, but he gets worse the further you remove him from that.

David,TCL
I agree with you TCL that the Tampa series was Boychuk’s poorest. However, I thought he played pretty well in the Philadelphia and Vancouver series. On occassion he does get caught out of position, but his physical play and shot help compensate for this. I thought Boychuk, along with Sidenberg, Chara, and Ferrence did an excellent job of getting Thomas’ rebounds out of harms way. I like McQuaid, but he is a little to slow to be a top four defenseman on a Stanley Cup Championship team. This is his third year as a regular and he needs to cut down on some positional gaffes.

David I completely agree. Honestly if I was a coach I would have been looking to exploit Boychuk as well. Boychuk still has a lot of rookie in him even though he was in his second full season, and he just seems to lack a sense of when to pinch and when not-I am just not sure if this sense is something that comes naturally or something learned with experience and time. If it is natural, Boychuk doesn’t have it.

bruins16,
I don’t mean Boychuck plays a game like kabby, it’s hard to not notice how much more he checks and shoots. What I mean is pretty much what TCL is saying: he has poor timing on his pinches and occasional lapse in positioning which leads to a goal. Those are his miscues, which are different from those of Kabby, but they are still miscues. It seemed like Tampa targeted him, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.

I think Kaberle is a good player, he just did not fit the Bruins style of play. I like Corvo because he will shoot more on the PP and his contract is team friendly. I remember reading Toronto fans on blogs saying Bruins fans will be yelling “shooooooot!!” at Kaberle every game and I definitely was every PP.

I think Boychuk had quite a few miscues during the playoffs. I think he was probably the most mistake prone of the defensemen-especially in the Tampa game 6 and seems like another Tampa game.

That said Boychuk’s weaknesses seem to be more in timing and knowing when to pinch, when to stay home etc. While his skating isn’t great, he could teach a clinic on the perfect hip check and has a really nice shot he is willing to use.

I still think Kaberle for the Bruins was mostly a bust. Kaberle wasn’t acquired to play limited bottom pairing minutes, but he couldn’t seem to shine if he was pulling more. Corvo, if he does stuggle and ends up on the bottom pairing at least will be hitting the cap at a lower cost.

David
Your wrong about Boychuk. In the first part of the season he did have some miscues, but in the later half of the season and the playoffs there weren’t many. As well, Boychuk did see ice time during penalty kills while Kaberle was never on during the times the Bruins were short-handed. As well, Boychuk did shoot the puck and he landed many solid bodychecks.

Good thing is Corvo is playing for a new contract and his current pay is low risk, good all the way around. I give Joe the edge over Kaberle because he likes to shoot. Hopefully he won’t have teammates ducking like Wides.

Jack,
Not sure Kaberle was a “very good” player, but he was good in the very limited time he received. By the finals, he got less than 10 minutes/gm some nights, which is not the hallmark of a good player, although I will agree that he was noticeable while out there for the most part, usually for good play once his time was limited, so I think that comes down to good coaching.

PCL,
I’m not sure how many “major” miscues I saw. I remember about 2 maybe 3 plays that were just bad, however Boychuck made more of these than Kaberle I felt, so I think we agree, but I say he was average by league standards defensively.

Overall, Corvo is a slight upgrade to Kabs I think because he will actually help our power play, because as PCL so eloquently stated, he shoots the damn puck! Defensively, I think he’s well below average and will likely not be a postseason improvement in terms of ice time over Kaberle, although he will hopefully have a few more power play points than last year. A good comparable I think is Marc-Andre Bergeron or Dennis Wideman (with motivation). Both get a good amount of points and create lots of offense via good instincts, but God help you if you expect solid play in your end of the ice.

Kaberle shunned contact and wouldn’t shoot hence he helped negate the man advantage. He brought all the intensity to the rink of a JD Drew. He would periodically showcase his great vision, but not enough for his asking price.

I’ll agree that the mystique of Kaberle makes Corvo a downgrade, but I surely wasn’t all that impressed with his play in Black & Gold, and I’m sure we’ll see that he won’t have a huge impact in Carolina either. It’s a different game now from when he and his style of play was effective. Teams sat back in the PK allowing saucy dishes to be made, to which he capitalized on. That’s not the case anymore. He has to take the shooting lanes that are given to him and he doesn’t, pretty much making any PP he’s on a 4v4 because teams don’t have to respect or honor his shot.
If Corvo gets the puck to the net from the back end, then he’s an upgrade from Kaberle, IMO. I know that shooting was never Kabele’s calling card, and I’m sure that his set up ability would have been better suited with a more talent/skill laden team, but for what this team is, a guy who can get shots to the net, creating rebound opportunities, is more valuable at that end of the ice.

Kaberle had a more then “a few small miscues” in his own end too. He wasn’t as bad as some made him out to be, but he certainly wasn’t a rock back there. I can think of at least two poor decisions that directly lead to goals in the playoffs alone, and I know I’m forgetting a couple. Those, IMO, aren’t “small miscues”.

I don’t listen to Felger, so my opinions are directly comprised from watching of his play and only time will tell, but I see Corvo’s value to this team as at least a push, if not an overall upgrade from from Kabs.

He is a stop-gap until we develop some of our younger Ds, and will be a reliable veteran presence, so I’m sure he will work out just fine.

He is however, a DOWNGRADE from Kaberle. It may have been tough to notice over all of Felger’s shouting, but Kaberle was a very good player for us in the playoffs, minus a few small miscues, and actually one of our better play architects. This aspect of the bruins game will most likely not be made up entirely by Corvo